As is known in the art, large host computers and servers (collectively referred to herein as “data storage systems”) require large capacity data storage systems. These storage systems generally include data processors, which perform many operations on data introduced to the host computer/server through peripherals including the data storage system. The results of these operations are output to peripherals, including the storage system.
One type of storage system is a magnetic disk storage system. Here a bank of disk drives and the host computer/server are coupled together through an interface. The interface includes “front end” or host computer/server controllers (or directors) and “back-end” or disk controllers (or directors). The interface operates the controllers (or directors) in such a way that they are transparent to the host computer/server. That is, data is stored in, and retrieved from, the bank of disk drives in such a way that the host computer/server merely thinks it is operating with its own local disk drive. One such system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,206,939, entitled “System and Method for Disk Mapping and Data Retrieval”, inventors Moshe Yanai, Natan Vishlitzky, Bruno Alterescu and Daniel Castel, issued Apr. 27, 1993, and assigned to the same assignee as the present invention.
The host computer/server controllers, disk controllers and cache memory are interconnected through a backplane printed circuit board. More particularly, disk controllers are mounted on disk controller printed circuit boards. The host computer/server controllers are mounted on host computer/server controller printed circuit boards. And, cache memories are mounted on cache memory printed circuit boards. The disk directors, host computer/server directors, and cache memory printed circuit boards plug into the backplane printed circuit board
Referring now to FIG. 1, a storage system is shown to include an electrical cabinet having stored therein: a plurality of front-end director boards; a plurality of back-end, or disk director boards; and a plurality of memory boards.
As is also known in the art, many customers are constrained by the amount of power available to their Data Centers from the Utility companies. They are also very concerned about energy efficiency and want to minimize their electricity costs. In order to deploy new storage equipment they need to know how much power the machines will draw. Former approaches included using the nameplate power value of the machine which can greatly over estimate the actual. The nameplate value does not consider configuration options. A higher power number can prevent customers from purchasing new equipment. Some former approaches also included rudimentary spreadsheets that required expert knowledge to run and also enabled competitors to copy the information in them.